


Creating a New Solar System

by irena_adler



Series: Watson [87]
Category: Numb3rs
Genre: F/M, OMG I Wrote Het, Romance, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 11:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14893592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irena_adler/pseuds/irena_adler
Summary: Amita gets some terrifying news.





	Creating a New Solar System

**Creating a New Solar System—** ****

Amita was in her office, sobbing, when Joseph found her.She’d been trying to work, trying to distract herself, but hadn’t succeeded.Her brain was a million miles away from astrophysics, cycling through horror scenarios faster than a computer.

“Amita!” Joseph said, shutting the door behind him and quickly coming to her side.

It was a thoughtful gesture, shutting the door so that no one else would see her distress, and was the sort of thing that Joseph did unconsciously.For some reason, that made her cry harder.

“Amita?”Joseph handed her a handkerchief.One of those old-fashioned kind that she didn’t know anyone carried anymore.That thought distracted her enough so that she was able to suck in a breath and stop sobbing.

Joseph put his hand on her shoulder as she wiped her face and blew her nose.She balled the handkerchief up in her hands and looked up at him.He took his hand away, as if he thought it might be unwanted.

“What’s wrong—” Joseph started.

“I’m pregnant,” Amita blurted out.

Joseph stared at her.Then he asked, very quietly, “Does Eppes know?”

Amita’s hands clenched together and she ground out, “It’s yours.”

Joseph took a step back.“Mine?Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Amita said with utter certainty.“I know it.”She couldn’t read Joseph’s face, his reaction. She tried to catch her breath and speak rationally.“I know because—when the whole … thing happened with Charlie –”

“After he used you then left you,” Joseph growled.

Amita blinked at him.She’d no idea that Joseph felt that way.She’d gone crawling back to Joseph and he’d taken her back without a comment.She shook her head, trying to clear it.“When the thing happened with Charlie, I was very depressed.I started taking an herbal remedy that had helped me in the past.I’d forgotten that St. John’s Wort can reduce the effectiveness of the Pill.It had to have been the first time that we … that first time because I had my p-period last cycle, like normal.But when I took the inert pills this time, so my period was supposed to start, it didn’t start.I waited for a week, thinking that maybe it was stress, then I took a home test, but it wasn’t clear, so I went to the doctor yesterday and she called this morning …”

“Wow,” Joseph said, sitting heavily in a nearby chair.“What are we going to do?”

“I’m keeping it!” Amita said fiercely.“Don’t you dare say—”

“No, no,” Joseph said.“That’s not what I meant.Of _course_ , you’re keeping it.Well, I mean, having it then … adoption?”

Amita shook her head, curling her arms around herself protectively.

“What about your career?” Joseph asked, with an odd note in his voice.

“People have kids and careers.”

“I always assumed that you didn’t want …” Joseph looked carefully at her face, then said, “I’ll marry you, of course.”

“God!” Amita said bitterly.“A pity marriage!That’s the last thing I want.”That was one of the horror scenarios that was haunting Amita – a rushed marriage by her parents to someone that loathed her and her baby.

Joseph grimaced.“I meant that we can get married now and then divorced in a year, so our—your baby won’t have any stigma attached to him because of an unmarried mother.”

That was even worse – a pity marriage followed by a pity divorce.“Great,” Amita said tightly, holding back the tears. “Do you want me to sign a contract saying I’ll agree to divorce you?”

“No,” Joseph said.“I’m just trying … I’m trying to ask you to marry me in a way that won’t make you run away.I want …”

Joseph took a deep breath, reached across the space that separated them, and gripped her hand.“I’ve been trying to get your attention since I came to CalSci, but with you, it was always about Eppes.”

“I know, but—”

“Please,” Joseph said gently, “Let me finish.When you finally agreed to go out with me, I was a happy man.I figured that I’d either find out that you weren’t as wonderful as you seemed or I’d fall in love with you.The second thing happened.That first date was great and then we had a second date and a third … I began to hope that you might care about me, too.

“Then Eppes … and you went back to him.I figured that was it, I’d lost my chance to capture your attention.I wasn’t as fascinating, as sexy, as desirable as Eppes.”

He held up a hand when Amita tried to protest.“When Eppes got back with his boyfriend and you came back to me, I should have been angry, felt like the lesser man.But, well, maybe I _am_ the lesser man because what mattered is that I had you again.And things between us seemed even better than before.But in the last few days, you’ve been distant and I began to worry.I know now that you were concerned you were pregnant.”

Amita nodded silently.

Joseph continued, in the same gentle but definite voice, “I want to marry you, be with you, raise our baby together, share my life with you.Maybe that’s too much to ask of you all at once, though.Especially with just finding out that you’re gonna have a baby.So I wonder if you’ll accept a year.A year to let me show you how much I care about you, and perhaps the chance for you to learn to care about me, too.”

Amita stared at him, speechless.

Joseph gave her a slight smile.“Don’t think of me as a man asking the woman he got pregnant to marry him out of duty or guilt.Rather, I’m a man who suddenly sees everything he’s ever wanted in front of him and is trying to have the nerve to grab it.”

“You … you want this baby?” she stammered.

“The baby and you, more than anything.”

“Wow,” Amita said.“Wow.”She rubbed her salty cheek, trying to process what Joseph had just said.“You …”

“I love you, Amita Ramanujan,” Joseph said clearly.“And I want to marry you and raise a family.”

“Whoa … Um … okay.”

“Okay?” Joseph asked with a surprised snort.“What does ‘okay’ mean?”

“Okay … okay we can get married and raise this baby and …”She looked at her hand, held in his.“I’d always thought that love was this burning, all-consuming, crazy-making thing.Maybe it’s not, maybe that’s something else.Lust or insanity or something.Maybe I’ve never had a chance to be in love.”She smiled shyly at him.“I’d like to try.”

“You think there might be a chance?” Joseph asked, light shining in his eyes.

“Yeah, a good chance.”A corner of her mouth twitched up in a crooked smile.“But don’t ask me to give odds.”

“Darn,” Joseph said, his voice a little shaky.“I thought you math people were all about the numbers.”

“I’m a physics people, now,” Amita said, squeezing his hand.“But Joseph?”

“Yes?”

“You’ll never be the lesser man, never.Whatever Charlie is, he’s not a better man than you.”

Joseph looked uncertain.

“In fact …” Amita handed the handkerchief back to him and stood up, keeping a hold of Joseph’s hand.“I think you’re the best man I’ve ever known.”

Joseph gave her a soft smile, the smile that he’d given her when she’d first said she’d go out with him.It had been that smile that had told her that she’d made the right decision then, and that she’d made the right decision now.

“I really need to go wash my face,” Amita said.“Walk me to the bathroom?”

“Certainly,” Joseph said, wiping remaining wetness from her face.

At a sudden thought, Amita gave a snort.“Oh Joseph, there is one thing about you that I really can’t stand.”

“Only one?” Joseph asked, tucking her hand in the crook of his arm.

“My parents are going to adore you.”

Joseph chuckled.“Oh no, that’s awful.”

“It is!” Amita said.“I’ve hated every man they’ve ever shoved at me and so it bothers me that I like you.”

“You like me?”

“Yeah,” Amita said.“Most definitely.”

“A good start,” Joseph smiled.He turned and they began to slowly walk towards the door.“Now, let’s see.About your parents … I can dye my hair pink.”

“You would do that for me?”

“Well … Only as a last resort.”

“Good, I like it how it is.”She brushed a strand from his forehead.

“I could drive a motorcycle or join a rock band or … I’ve got it, I’ll figure out whatever your father’s position is on the mass density of the universe and ‘dark energy’ and argue the other side.”

“Let’s not get carried away!” Amita laughed.

“Oh, I quite plan on getting carried away,” Joseph said with an impish smile that made Amita’s heart flutter unexpectedly.“I’ve not only snagged the most desirable physicist on campus—”

“Not a lot of competition.”

“—but I’m gonna be a daddy to the smartest baby ever.”

Amita grinned, and snuggled closer to Joseph, feeling for the first time in weeks … months? … _years?_ … that she was loved.

* * *

More pictures of Joseph Saha (aka Bollywood star Ajay Devgan) - [Pic 1](http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i182/irena_adler/LJ/actgal3889.jpg), [Pic 2](http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i182/irena_adler/LJ/ajay_devgan_7.jpg)


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